


Well Deserved

by SirKai



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, MTMTE, Surgery, more than meets the eye
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-11
Updated: 2013-10-11
Packaged: 2017-12-29 02:32:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/999819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirKai/pseuds/SirKai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pharma is tasked with treating the cruel, and extensive, injuries of a recently defected ex-Decepticon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Well Deserved

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GoingLoco](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=GoingLoco).



> Birthday gift for the terrific GoingLoco! And Zulai did a lovely piece of companion art for this fic as well!  
> http://zulaiismyname.tumblr.com/post/63746323245

The laser scalpel slowly etched a path along the panels of each limb, accompanied by a satisfying hiss. There were panels cut into halves, panels cut into quarters, panels almost completely severed from the body. On the empty half of the operating room was a growing display of garish pink panelling; the parts of body parts. All of the separated pieces were precisely the same distance apart, eventually crafting the disturbing image of a splayed and cubed cybertronian silhouette across the pristine white floor.

The body on the slab was then much too thin. Far too skeletal. Every pipe, vain, joint, and bolt was exposed. Even given his line of work, Pharma wasn’t accustomed to seeing the cybertronian body as so… hollow, except as remnants across a battlefield, where the job was done with far less elegance. 

Pharma collected himself for a moment, steeling himself in the momentary silence, and then returned to the patient. He hunched over an arm, then a leg, then the open torso, then the crevices in the patient’s face. Pharma prodded and burned away at bits of shrapnel with his scalpel, scrutinizing every metallic crease he could find through his optic magnifier. The joints on the arms and legs were re-engineered to twist in odd directions, like a cheap alt-mode conversion job from a relinquishment clinic. He squinted, scraped, and scrubbed at stains of energon, toxins, and other fluid. Some of it unrecognizable. Maybe from a different species entirely? Pharma considered.

He retrieved a yellow hazard mask to cover the bottom half of his face. The patient’s veins were punctured, cracked and leaking in countless places. His entire circulatory system was filled with strange, discolored energon mixtures, and every limb had some new synthetic compound swashing around in it.

The doctor finally stood up and sighed. He rubbed two fingers against the bottom of his head crest and slapped at the intercom button on the wall. “Weave.”

A staticy voice replied from the speaker. “Yessir?”

“I need you to retrieve some of the reserve energon from supply control and deliver it to OR A-2.”

“Of course sir. How much?”

Pharma glowered at the body on the slab. “Seventy litres.”

“Seventy litres!?” the intercom remarked. “That’s almost two full cyl-”

“ _I know how much it is_. Do it.”

A few minutes later, two cylinders, each one half of Pharma’s height, were wheeled into the operating room. Weave admired the scene in the operating room with a low “woah,” and left.

When he felt alone again, Pharma slowly dragged a hand over his face, then stretched his blue servos and widened his dimming optics. “Body won’t drain itself,” he groaned.

Nearly an hour of preparation later, the doctor stood back to look at his patient, still as ever, now appearing as some sort of organic root with over twenty thin tubes sprouting from all over. The vile excuse for energon siphoned through the translucent tubing and filled canister after canister. The black-and-violet fluid sloshed around in a dozen containers by the time Pharma was finished.

‘Finished’ also entailed thoroughly washing and rinsing the toxic build up from the myriad of energon pipes and veins. An arsenal of various tools and utensils, ranging from wire pipe cleaners to disposable metallic scalpels had piled up in the sanitation sink. Pharma raised his soaked, dripping forearms up to the overhead light. They were sodden in the dark purple mess. He smirked, then his optic lids lowered slightly and his expression sagged as he rested against the nearest wall. The doctor cocked his head slightly at the violet smear across the tiles, matching his arm like a shadow. 

Well, Weave can clean it up, he thought.

He pressed his mouth into a thin line, resisted the urge to slap himself awake with his toxic hands, and cleaned himself up. The tubing that funneled into the patient was replaced, this time injecting litre after litre of pink, unblemished energon. Once the clean current of fuel was circulating through the patient, Pharma was less concerned with tidying up the transfusion equipment for sterilization, and was instead determined to merely get the mass of tubing out of his way by lazily kicking it all into a corner of the room.

The doctor’s feet carried him back over to the map sheared paneling he’d made earlier on the floor of the OR. Considering the next step in the procedure, Pharma was suddenly much more intimidated by the scene. With an exhausting stretch of his back, the doctor set about clasping each trimmed panel and welding them back into their respective places on the patient’s frame. By the time the doctor had reached the feet, the smoking creases where the severed panels conjoined had shifted from faultless straight seams to erratic motions more reminiscent of some organic suture job. If his pistons weren’t creaking and whining from stress, and his optics a few shades more energetic, Pharma might have opted to re-weld the less precisely attached panels. But, he settled, the patient can always just get a new paint job. No one’ll even notice.

As he finished up the final searing motion across the bottom of the patient’s foot, he let the frame welder idly slip from his fingers and clatter against the floor. Pharma wasn’t even concerned with how operational it might be anymore. Sidling over to the holographic interface above the slab, the doctor tapped at a few airborne keys as he muttered to himself. “Preparation… done… yes… _sigh_ … transfusion… minus two cylinders from SC… sterilizing and post-op clean up… Weave can handle that…” The doctor cycled through a few more luminous menus. “Let’s get this over with,” he said. With the tap of his thumb against one of the holo-keys, the dimly lit blue lights atop the habitation slab flared brighter and brighter, until the patient jolted momentarily as if startled by a current of electricity. The patient's head jostled slightly with open optics darting across the room. A few vowels started to stammer from his mouth. “A-ah… uuhh.. aahh…”

The doctor watched his patient panic for a bit, or at least behave in a way that one might _assume_ was a panicky response, given his extremely limited range of movement.

“I suggest you keep your actions minimized as much as possible; even talking will be difficult,” Pharma advised. “I suppose you’d like to be debriefed?” He reached onto the counter behind him and snatched up an illuminated datapad. “And if not, too bad; it’s mandatory for all POWs. So, let’s begin shall we?”

The patient on the slab was predictably motionless.

Pharma leaned back against the counter and read the datapad with gloomy, half-lidded eyes. “As a defecting party, you have hereby placed yourself voluntarily into Autobot custody. You’re granted essential privileges, the extent of which may vary upon your continued and honest cooperation, yadda yadda.” Pharma flicked at the screen. “You are forbidden from speaking of active Decepticon parties in any sort of familial way, you are required to divulge any information requested.” There was another flick at the datapad’s screen. Pharma’s voice devolved into a low droning. “Withholding information is grounds for the immediate abolishment of any earned privileges, any skills or services you have may be utilized for Autobot duty without resistance…” Pharma sighed, and flick the screen one more time. “And of course, any visual symbolism, decorative or otherwise, representing Decepticon allegiance or rank must be destroyed or altered beyond recognition.” His voice perked up slightly as he sat the datapad back on the counter behind him. “I hope you don’t have any questions.”

There were a few stuttering jerks from the patient’s head. Pharma was confident it was in agreement that, no, he didn’t have any questions.

“Now,” Pharma started, pointing at different areas of the patient’s anatomy as he spoke. “During your surgery I re-aligned all of your joints, cleaned the innards of every panel, sealed the leaks in your veins and pipes, performed a full-frame energon transfusion, and I uh…” Pharma motioned the datapad at his patient’s chest. “Took the liberty of removing any _offensive imagery_.”

The patient glanced at his chest, staring for a moment at the chipped, unpainted splotch where his Decepticon badge once was. He craned his head towards the doctor and lifted his brow slightly (it was likely all he could manage). “Th-thank you.”

Pharma nodded at him. “The only surgical matter left to tend to is your innermost energon. It seems just as blighted as the rest of your previous energon stores." He leaned his head towards the dozen large vials of grotesque purple liquid on the counter. "That said, some can be quite... sentimental about it, so I wanted your approval before I replaced it.”

“Get.. rid of it.” The patient’s voice was hoarse, but far more articulate than before.

“Good. I was hoping you’d say that. I’ll have you scheduled for inner-energon replacement tomorrow afternoon,” Pharma tapped at the holographic slab display several times, still talking as he did so. “A complete frame transfusion is quite taxing. Your rehabilitation therapy will begin day after tomorrow, and you’ll likely be on your feet again in a few weeks.”

A guttural, raspy sound vaguely resembling an "mhm" crawled from beyond the patient's throat.

“Now,” Pharma said, his voice trailing off. “I just need something for your file; anything to ID you. Alias, nickname, birth name, doesn’t matter.”

The parts within the patient’s neck and mouth started to whir and wheeze again. “Ah… Am… bu… loo… oonnn…”

“A-M-B-U-L-O-N,” the doctor repeated mechanically as he typed with one hand. With one final keystroke, he stepped back from the slab and took in a final look at his patient. “Now then Ambulon, I’ll let you rest. A nurse has been assigned to assist you should you require anything. As for me…” Pharma shuffled towards the door. He tapped at the digital panel next to the frame and the door swooshed open. “I’ve been in this room for over thirty hours and am resigning myself to a _hab suite shift_ for the next two days.” He offered a lazy wave from over his shoulder, a gesture Ambulon likely couldn’t even see, and stumbled through the door.


End file.
